`We`ll Use Anyone We Can Get`

Owners Vote To Play, Even If Players Strike

National Football League owners unanimously voted Thursday in Schaumburg to play through a player strike by fielding anyone willing to wear a uniform. They insisted they weren`t kidding.

``There will be an opportunity for fans who don`t want to attend to get refunds,`` said Jack Donlan, executive director of the owners` Management Council.

Cut-rate tickets for cut-rate games were ``not addressed,`` according to Donlan.

Details of assembling and organizing pickup teams also were not discussed.

``We`re still figuring there`s not going to be a strike,`` said Bears President Michael McCaskey.

Donlan said owners agreed to play ``with whatever players are available to play with, any players we can get to play with,`` including union members who want to cross the picket lines.

This opens the possibility of games pitting regular pros from one city against dockworkers from another.

Donlan said 19 teams have signed players to ``option contracts`` to play in case of a strike.

Bears player representative Mike Singletary said on Monday the Bears would decide what to do as a team and would stick together.

After Thursday`s action by the owners, Singletary expressed disappointment.

``I don`t understand it. But at this point anything can happen,`` he said. ``I`m still optimistic that something can be settled before the strike date.

``The owners` decision kind of surprises me. I thought maybe management would try to come up with some workable plan the union could look at. But there was nothing.``

The NFL Players Association has announced a strike date of Sept. 22 if a new collective bargaining agreement cannot be reached. Donlan said new round- the-clock meetings are scheduled to start Saturday at an undisclosed location. Union executive director Gene Upshaw met with management`s executive committee of owners Thursday morning at an undisclosed location in Chicago, but no progress was reported.

Tampa Bay owner Hugh Culverhouse, chairman of the executive committee, said the player demand for free-agency remains the single biggest hurdle to a settlement.

Donlan said if free-agency could be resolved, 303 other union issues could be resolved ``in some fashion or form.``

Culverhouse said the decision to cross picket lines was not made to antagonize the union. ``It`s a matter we have to resolve in the best interests of protecting the integrity of the game.``

Culverhouse was asked: ``What about fans who pay to see Vinny Testaverde and get Fred Ronk?``

``I don`t know him,`` Culverhouse answered. ``He may be a good player.``

Dallas Cowboys President Tex Schramm added: ``This year, some people think the players we have are funny players.``

Most teams, including the Bears, have offered $1,000 to players released during the preseason who promise to return. But management refused to divulge how many such players are signed. The Bears made offers to fewer than six and not all accepted. Not until Thursday had owners voted to go through with plans to continue playing.

Owners also voted Thursday to open a line of credit for a reported $100 million to protect them in the event of a strike.

Their network television contract of $473 million in 1987 has no language stipulating a rebate for telecasting games between strikebreakers. However, the league acknowledges that ``adjustments`` would be made to networks based on what the TV moguls might lose in advertising revenue.

``No one thinks this is a perfect solution,`` Donlan said of playing through a strike. ``But we have to try something different.``

Donlan said owners expressed a ``high level of frustration`` after sitting out a 57-day strike in 1982 and losing an estimated $200 million in revenue.

During player strikes in 1968, 1970, 1974 and 1982, games between strikebreakers took place only in the 1974 preseason.

Schramm said the owners` action was not intended as a ``union-bashing``

technique.

``We need the union. It`s very important to us. A lot of our structure is based upon the union,`` he said.

For example, free-agency itself was once won in the courts by the union but traded back in collective bargaining for money and other concessions.